ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH! I hate this weather! It is cold out there. Nasty cold. We have been spoiled by mild weather. The other day it went up to +12C. Today we are at -11 C with a wind chill of -19. This morning the wind chill was -29. Nasty. I have been used to going out almost every day. The only time that I haven't gone out for at least the walk to get the kids at school has been when I had that flu. Either 24 hour or 24 ounce. I did walk to my weaving guild meeting yesterday. It was cold then too. I want the mild weather back. Winter , winter go away. Now! How confused must those poor birds that over winter up here be? I wonder how many chickadees dropped dead of shock two nights ago when the deep freeze struck.
That was my bitch session for today. Or at least as much as you are going to hear. Lucky you.
Over the past couple of days I have been making progress with sock 2 The cuff is about 4 inches. I picked up a sock book at the library the other day and I had to laugh when I started reading through it. One of the first things that it said was, if you were going to knit a sock, you had to believe the directions. I has that disbelief when I got to the heel of my sock. K2P1 is pretty basic. I had done this before and knew what to expect. But at the heel, I read the directions 3 or 4 times and still didn't understand how the heck it was going to work. And wouldn't it be lopsided. It just didn't make sense. But I bravely said WTF and plowed on. Son of a gun. It worked out just fine. I shall believe the pattern from now on and trust that they know what they are talking about.
And here is some crafty procrastination. Friday night, I decided that I was tired of holding my ball of yarn on my lap and I was also tired of it rolling around my none to pristine floor. So I decided to make a basket to hold my ball of yarn while knitting. I had taken a basketry course a few years ago and loved it, so had picked up some reeds so that I could continue on in basket land. I used the tub for soaking my reeds so I had to finish this particular project within 24 hours. 6 people, 1 bathtub. The math is easy.
No jokes about underwater basket weaving please. I heard enough of them at the time that I took the course.
So 24 hours later, I have a slightly damp basket that is about 7 inches wide and 5 inches deep. I may have to line it with fabric or varnish it to get the inside smooth enough so that my yarn won't snag. When it is completely dry, I will give it a test run and see if the yarn even does snag.
Speaking of snags, I found what I thing will be my shawl pattern. Apparently it is " suprisingly simple to knit". That is yet to be seen. It is a traditional fir cone pattern. I started a sample because this was yet another time when reading the pattern left me shaking my head. A sample is not another project and so I am within my one project per medium restraint. I have only done about 7 rows, but it is looking suprisingly like something that the cat ate and spit up. But not as slimy. I shall believe the pattern, press on, and see if it starts to resemble a fir cone.
I shall see if I can get my hands on a camera so that you can see my progress.
Thanks and goodnight.
5 comments:
sweet baby, my mum would k-knit a pair of socks in a couple of days, why? she had 15 children..it is so amusing to hear you are stories, if you had to do it out of necessity, the sock would have been done and found a foot to fit..right here right now..we didn't have wal-mart. woolworth yes, but good knitted socks noooo..
Congratulations on finishing the sock! As for gauge swatches -- I do them, and then when I'm actually knitting, the gauge is all off.
I don't know why this happens.
I have an Einstein Coat that has been sitting on the needles for months because the gauge really didn't matter until I got to the sleeves. And that means math and I just abandoned the poor thing.
waiting for sock pictures...
'zann
It was darn cold this weekend! Jasmin and I didn't venture out either.
Personally I'd love to know basket weaving. I'd like to make myself one of the "backpack" baskets you see people with at the market. I tried to find one to buy online once but it cost something like $200.
ooh the backpack baskets at pennsic are beeeoootiful and less than 200 dollars. I believe that Holly paid about 75 for hers. Making one would be cool, do I here calls for a s&b????
or I guess a w&b....
Baby N is even cuter when she is not blurry.
Indeed there is something strange in taking so much pride in something that used to be taken for granted. 60 years ago, you knit socks or did without. I think that my vast amount of pride comes from doing something that my grandmothers did as a matter of course, but that has become less mainstream as the years progress. I am glad that I don't HAVE to knit socks. I have come to terms with most of the things that I HAVE to do in the run of a day to keep the house from imploding and the board of health from closing me down. I would hate to have knitting socks added to that list that holds such worthies as dishes, laundry, floors, food related things. It would cease to be fun. And there are so many other fun things to do in the run of a day.
Zann, Thanks for making me feel better about my swatchlessness. I am so cheep that I would probably undo the swatch so that I could use the yarn. What does one do with swatches anyway besides measure them?
Amy, one of the reasons that those back pack baskets are so expensive is that a lot of times they are made of ash, which in itself quite expensive. I sthere something cheeper? Probably, but I don't know what it is.
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